Investigation questioned
Miramar police change policy on stalking cases
HALLANDALE BEACH Questions continue to mount around a stalking allegation involving Police Chief Dwayne Flournoy and how it was handled by Miramar police five years ago.
Miramar never turned the case over to the Broward State Attorney’s Office, despite a request by prosecutors that police agencies notify them when an officer is accused of a crime.
Tuesday afternoon, a day after the Sun Sentinel posted a story about the controversy, a Miramar police captain emailed detectives, directing them to forward all stalking cases to the State Attorney’s Office for review, effective immediately.
“The willingness of the victim’s cooperation or veracity is not a consideration,” the captain wrote. “The sergeants will be responsible for conducting a biweekly audit to ensure compliance. The first audit shall be pro- vided to me on July 13.”
Miramar Police Chief Ray Black ordered the policy change to ensure there are no further questions about inconsistencies in the way cases are handled, said agency spokeswoman Tania Rues.
In the meantime, the police union attorney who accused Hallandale’s top cop of being unfit for duty has a new gripe.
On June 15, Hallandale Beach City Manager Renee Miller hired retired Miami-Dade Police Capt. Glenn Stolzenberg to investigate union attorney Tony Alfero’s claims.
The allegations, listed in a let- ter Alfero sent to City Hall in May, include an alleged DUI stop in Miramar, a bar fight in Pembroke Pines and the stalking case from 2010.
Alfero says Stolzenberg has a questionable connection to Miller: He worked with her husband at the Miami-Dade Police Department.
“If she has ties to him through her husband, that doesn’t make for a fair and unbiased investigation,” Alfero said. “The public is not going to have any trust in the investigation based on that.”
Miller defended her choice,
saying Stolzenberg has conducted hundreds of investigations as head of the Professional Compliance Bureau for Miami-Dade Police.
“I think he is more than qualified to handle the investigation,” she told the Sun Sentinel.
Stolzenberg’s consulting business, incorporated June 17, counts Hallandale Beach as its first client.
He described Miller’s husband — former Miami Gardens Interim Police Chief Paul Miller — as an acquaintance.
Miller was a Miami-Dade cop from 1987 to 2006, but Stolzenberg said the two did not work closely together or interact outside work.
Stolzenberg, who retired May 31, vouched for his ability to handle the investigation.
“I am not in the chief’s chain of command,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I have never met the chief.”
Joseph Gibson, attorney for Flournoy, accused Alfero of pursuing a personal vendetta.
“There is going to be a public reckoning for Mr. Alfero,” Gibson said. “We are going to do whatever we can do to make it stop.”
But some police experts say Alfero has a point.
“There is going to be an appearance of a lack of independence,” said Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “You have to go the extra mile to make sure people see [the investigation] as independent.”
Another questioned the wisdom of hiring someone who investigated Internal Affairs complaints.
“The complaint about IA is they kiss up and kick down,” said Eugene O’Don- nell, a former New York cop and prosecutor, now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “They’re in tight with top brass. You don’t go to an IA guy to get leadership questions resolved.”
But Bob Dekle, a University of Florida law professor and former state prosecutor, says the hired gun might just do a decent job after all.
“Just because A knows B doesn’t disqualify A from making correct decisions about B,” he said.
Stolzenberg said he expects the investigation to take two months.